Courtney Love has alleged Prince Andrew once tried to seduce her in response to allegations paedophile and alleged child sexual abuse facilitator Jeffrey Epstein introduced the pair to one another.
The royal turned up at the star’s house at one am “looking for sex”, and while they did not sleep together, the 55-year-old widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has told friends Andrew was “very flirtatious”.
“I was in bed when the doorbell rang, so put on my fluffy slippers and a dressing gown, and the Queen’s second son was standing there with a protection officer, totally unannounced. He said he had got my address from a mutual friend and was looking to have a fun night in Hollywood, and apparently I could show him a good time,” Love told a friend.
She offered to make him a cup of tea, and thought it would be amusing to serve him it out of a vintage china cup with the Queen’s face on it – the pair were said to find it funny.
"We sat down on the sofa, by the fire, and that is when he got quite flirtatious. He asked me what I did all day, which I found quite offensive, so I quipped back, ‘And what do you do all day, Prince?’ He seemed amused. In the end he only stayed for around 45 minutes. Of all the things that have happened in my life, this truly is one of the most surreal things — and that’s saying something,” she concluded.
A photograph taken on the night in question was published in her 2006 memoirs, Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love.
In July, Epstein was arrested on federal charges for sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York, over a decade after his conviction for soliciting prostitution from underage girls, for which he was forced to register as a sex offender.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges, but was found dead in cell 10th August, apparently having committed suicide.
Andrew has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of Epstein’s death, as mere hours prior to his alleged hanging a vast collection of court documents relating to the allegations of Virginia Giuffre was unsealed. She claims she was recruited by Epstein’s longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell at the age of 16 to work as the hedge-fund manager’s masseuse – the job being a cover for sexual abuse by Epstein, Maxwell and an entire retinue of the pair’s elite contacts and friends.
Included in the files’ evidence itinerary was Epstein’s ‘black book’, said to contain several sections titled ‘Massage’, alongside geographical designations along with names of females and corresponding telephone numbers, some which belonged to underage girls with no training in massage therapy.
While just one of several hundred elite Britons listed in the book, Andrew’s name appears 56 times in the documents, with 16 separate numbers for the royal, including a mobile number, one marked “Palace ex-directory”, and details for royal Scottish retreats Balmoral and Sandringham. Love is also named in the book.
Giuffre claims claims she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions, when she was just 17 years old. He has vigorously denied the allegations, and a US judge struck out Giuffre’s claims against Prince Andrew in 2015, labelling them “immaterial” and “impertinent”.
Last month, Andrew issued a statement distancing himself from his former friend, stating he saw Epstein “infrequently…probably no more than only once or twice a year”.
“I stayed in a number of his residences. At no stage during the limited time I spent with him did I see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to his arrest and conviction. I have tremendous sympathy for all those affected by his actions and behaviour,” he said.
In a 2006 TV interview to promote the book, Love said the eighth person in line to the British throne came “looking for chicks”. In response, a spokesperson for the Prince said he had visited Love’s house, but wasn’t alone and it was “absolute nonsense” to suggest he went in search of a sexual dalliance. Nonetheless, the spokesperson claimed the incident occurred in 2000, a year after he allegedly first met Epstein.